One Thousand Roses"
by Lachesis Fatali
Summary: A promise coming to fruition... Muraki's POV, alludes to Tsuzuki/Hisoka


"One Thousand Roses"  
by Lachesis Fatali  
  
Muraki scares me. There's just some deep down, bone-chillingly, Sephiroth-like freakiness in him that makes me think of alley ways at night, bad dreams and the dark side of the force. He's EVIL. Pure evil. And he continually tortures Tsuzuki and Hisoka (pouts). But I wanted to try a fic from his point of view, so here it is.  
  
************  
  
I wonder if you remember my promise to you.   
  
I sit, comfortably perched on the top of the building next to yours. It is a bit chill in these predawn hours, but cold never really bothered me. What bothers me is that little splatter of blood across the front of my new silk coat. I absentmindedly frown down at it, and at the body strewn at my feet, wondering if dry-cleaning alone would be sufficient to clean the formerly pure white fabric. It's been years since I was last so careless. But with you so close by, I cannot help but justify my distraction. I have many things on my mind tonight, you first and foremost.   
  
You, and the promise.  
  
Granted, it was made long ago, even by our standards, the ones outside of death and time. But I had hoped that I made an impression upon you that day, for good or ill. You certainly made one on me. My dearest Tsuzuki. You were so conflicted, trapped by morality and compassion, yet powerful all the same. I could feel the bare fringes of the force you possessed, the core of demonic power within you. Our meeting was too short. Yet for months after I could still see the intense violet of your eyes, the outline of your lithe form under your overcoat. Hedonistic of me, really. But I did not deny the fact that I wanted you.  
  
It was the second time we crossed paths, I believe, when I mentioned the promise to you. Your anger was so passionate, so dark, I could not help but think of my roses. I always had an affinity for the flowers, for their crimson petals and silken thorns, which drew blood across even the most callused of skin. They were perfection, in the basest of nature's ways. And so were you. Even as you cursed my name, I could not help but want you, even as you whispered his name in softer tones than I could dare ever hope from you. I wanted you to be mine.  
  
I promised you a thousand roses. And then, I would come for you.  
  
The first one was a "Rose Audorata", one of my favorite varieties, a hybrid tearose. It's petals were a rich, golden color, with thorns nearly an inch long, a dull muted green, along with it's stem. I placed it upon your doorstep, nearly three years ago, on a warm summer morning unlike this chill December one. And I still remember and cherish the look on your face when you found it there, the carefully guarded fury and ever more carefully guarded fear on your features. Yet you took the flower in and placed it in a vase by your windowsill. My dear Tsuzuki. Such a contradiction in terms.   
  
Nightmares plagued you that night, and many nights after. But I remember that first night vividly, the way that you tossed and turned in your sleep, pale limbs exposed under silver moonlight. I watched you then, as I do now, wondering what terrors I had awakened within you, what darkness you found yourself to possess through my influence. But that night, he came to you. My sacrificial Doll, the eternally wounded, eternally healing empath. I had underestimated your bond, not for the first time. And I had to watch, seething, as he reached a hesitant hand out to you, only for you to enfold him in your embrace, your complete trust his alone. I had to see you sleep, side by side, to wake the next morning in each other's arms. And when I saw the fixed fervency of your gaze as you looked down at the slumbering form in your arms, I knew.  
  
You have called me sick, demented; for many reasons, but a majority of the disgust seems to be centered on my attraction to you. Yet you justify your lust for a sixteen-year-old boy with sentiment, though seventy years his senior. Of the same gender as yourself, just as I. He is your own partner, no less, the one person above all others that you wish to keep safe from your madness, that you want to embrace and distance yourself from at the same time. Not that I find fault with you for wanting him. You are forgiven. For he is beautiful, in a golden, fragile way; a creature seemingly made of spun silk and rough emeralds. Cold and muti-faceted, reflecting both the light and darkness that surrounds him without a thought of self. If you truly wish his love and not just his touch, it will be the greatest battle you'll ever have to fight. And one, I fear you, that you shall never know you won.  
  
But the underlying question is are you damned for wanting him? Or is he damned for wanting you? A smile touches my lips at the thought of my Doll, and the bond we undeniably share. Would I have it that you and he could hear these musings, that you knew the thoughts in your partner's mind mirrored the ones in your own. What would you do, I wonder, if you found out. Brush your lips over his, a soft caress of deeper meaning? Or would you simply take him, in a cataclysm of years of longing, reveling in the feel of bronzed skin against soft cream, burning with desire and infatuation? If you care to know, I would prefer the latter. It would make my nightly vigil much more... exciting.   
  
It must be torture for you to know that I had him, even against his will, for many reasons. Because you, in your self-sacrifice, wish to protect him from me. Because you feel the need to ease the pain that his past has caused him. And because you see him as something forever beyond your reach. Foolish. You always did have a martyr complex, my dear Tsuzuki. If you want something, you take it. That is the way the world works.  
  
So then you might ask why I am doing this. Why I sit here watching you, night after night, and place a rose upon your doorstep dawn after dawn. Why do I not simply sweep down and take you, as I suggest you do to him. And my answer is this: you are special. Not simply because of your power, the lofty position you hold among the hierarchy of the dead. There is something unworldly about your nature, the demonic beauty that you have, the glimmer of a secret in your violet eyes. It is an unconscious, sensual lure, and I am not the only one susceptible to it either. Your teammates, your superiors, even the demons that you face on a daily basis feel it, to some degree. They all are drawn to you, to your darkness, like moths to a flame. And make no mistake. Someday you will lose control of your other nature, and burn them all.  
  
And then, I will be there to claim that darkness as my own,   
  
I would have had you long ago, were it not for him. And therein lies the root of my bitter animosity towards your dearest partner. As a mortal boy, he was a Doll, a distraction. A little, meaningless toy. But now within his death he is the adversary I did not anticipate. A competitor for your affections, and a fierce protector of your sanity, in both the darkness and the relative sanctity of the day. I now regret killing him. Things would be so much easier for me if he were still alive.  
  
But I'm always up to a challenge.   
  
I smile to myself as I approach the door to your apartment, looking up at the window I know to be your room, almost whimsically. Is he with you now again? Did he once more sense your night terrors, your pure and precious fear, and come to comfort you, as he did that one night years ago? Will you embrace him as you did then, and keep him with you, your only protection against my love his own?   
  
I shake my head, gently removing the rose from within the fold of my coat, fingers tracing over its delicate thorns. It doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't matter if he's with you, whether you want him to be there, whether you want him there always. Because tomorrow...  
  
I place the rose upon your doorstep, fading away from the daylight as the sun rises above the horizon.  
  
Tomorrow, you will be mine.  
  
Nine hundred, ninety nine...  
  
************  
  
Did I mention I think he's EVIL!  



End file.
